Martin O’Malley: Don’t send kids to ‘certain death’

NASHVILLE — Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley urged compassion Friday for children flooding over the U.S. border from Latin American countries, sharply rejecting any wholesale effort to return them to places where he said they could face “certain death.”

The comments by O’Malley — a potential 2016 Democratic presidential candidate — come as the Obama administration is looking for ways to speed up deportations of the minors and additional funding for border security.

In a CNN town hall-style event last month, Clinton said the U.S. must “send a clear message [that] just because your child gets across the border doesn’t mean your child gets to stay.”

During a press conference with other Democrats at meeting of the National Governors Association in Nashville, O’Malley insisted the young would-be migrants deserved due process in the immigration system.

“We are not a country that should send children away and send them back to certain death,” he said, adding: “I believe that we should be guided by the greatest power we have as a people, and that is the power of our principles. Through all of our great world religions, we are told that hospitality to strangers is an essential human dignity.”

O’Malley said the facilities housing the children look more like a scene from a “local Humane Society than a humane country.” He called them “kennels” and said the youth should be placed in less restrictive settings, such as with family members or in the foster care system.

He also described the children as being “refugees” from crime-ridden neighborhoods.

At one point, the Maryland governor laughed off a question about his 2016 plans, though he did say the questioner had a right to ask.